Signs of the Times That Must Be Remembered

I can remember driving from New England to Florida with my family when I was a kid, probably just 10 or 12. Somewhere just south of Washington, my mother pointed out a sign hanging over the door of a roadside restaurant.

I can’t imagine what it must have been like for anyone on the wrong side of signs like that … (faulty punctuation notwithstanding).

In the same way, I can’t begin to know what it must have been like for a 60- or 70-year-old black person to watch Barack Obama being sworn in as president of the United States.

This is from a magnificent collection of photographs about the inauguration that appeared in the Boston Globe … many of which were taken in far corners of the world. You can see them all here.